Mira meets governor on poll security

- Panel distances itself from any law-and-order problems govt's 9-district plan may cause

OUR BUREAU

Mira Pande and MK Narayanan

Calcutta, May 22: State election commissioner Mira Pande today met governor M.K. Narayanan, briefed him about the "situation with the government" and distanced the poll panel from any law-and-order problems the state's insistence on a nine-district phase might lead to, sources said.

Pande had requested the unscheduled appointment ahead of issuing the commission's matching notification to kick off the panchayat poll process. She met Narayanan for around 30 minutes this evening.

"I briefed him about the situation with the government, about the notification and the security situation," she said while leaving Raj Bhavan.

Commission sources said Pande had told the governor, to whom she reports as a matter of constitutional protocol, that she had been "forced" to accept the government's 9-4-4 district distribution formula despite her reservations.

"If there are law-and-order problems — and there is every possibility given this arrangement — then, she said, the commission should not have to shoulder the responsibility," a commission source said.

The source said Pande had not been "accusatory" but made a "simple statement of facts".

"She told the governor about the security concerns regarding a nine-district phase and how it necessitates 1 lakh to 1.2 lakh security personnel under the high court division bench's deployment guidelines. She said she was being forced to issue a matching notification to honour the division bench ruling."

Pande was learnt to have cited the "lack of clarity" yet from the chief secretary, home secretary, director-general of police and the additional director-general (law and order) on how and from where forces could be sourced to meet the deficit. The state can only offer about 45,000-50,000 personnel from its police forces for poll duty, government officials have said.

Pande is supposed to meet home secretary Basudeb Banerjee and senior police officers tomorrow for another round of discussions to seek clarity on the security arrangements being made by the state.

Sources said Pande was now "handicapped" because of the division bench ruling and the summer vacation at the high court that followed immediately afterwards.

Prior to that, since April last year, Pande had been insistent on — and confident of — getting 800 companies of central forces, including 300 companies from the nomination phase, to ensure free, fair and peaceful elections.

In her own words, her stand was "vindicated" by Justice Biswanath Somadder's May 10 judgment that upheld almost every key demand of the commission. But the May 14 division bench ruling by Chief Justice A.K. Mishra and Justice Joymalya Bagchi changed the situation.

Till the courts reopen, the commission has to fall in line and carry on with poll preparations to meet the division bench's July 15 deadline.

Even after it has issued its matching notification, the poll panel can invoke Section 137(2) of the West Bengal Panchayat Elections Act, 2003, which empowers it to "do anything" necessary to remove any "difficulty". The commission, though, has not yet decided whether or how to go about it.

The polls are scheduled across 57,000-odd booths in 17 districts on July 2, 6 and 9. The nine districts earmarked for the first phase account for over 36,000 booths, of which more than 25,000 are "sensitive" or "highly sensitive".

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